Barcelona Calling - An Irregular Spanish Round-Up
- Written by Kenneth McMurtrie
As the releases from Barcelona’s BCore have built up since the last time we reported on them here’s a brief commentary on what they’ve put out in the last few months.
Approaching these acts in alphabetical order we first come to Bullitt, from Sant Feliu. So Many Ways is the fourth album from the quartet but on the strength of the dozen songs therein it’s one which is very accessible, thereby holding the promise that the indie rock style they pursue is unchanged from their previous works.
Opening track ‘She Leads My Soul’ is a great way to begin an album of this sort – its energy making the ears prick up and the mind take note. The likes of Titus Andronicus spring to mind. The general pace of the album never really dips after this song gives way to ‘Back To The End’; sure there are a couple of slower & more considered tracks (‘Dinosaurs’ for example) but the quality on offer means that what you get is a decent variety of songs, rather than a bunch that all sound the same & of which you get tired by the time the halfway point of the album is reached.
The band, who sing in English, also manage to tread that careful line that allows for stadium rock production touches in their sound without conceding their integrity – the emotions are unfaked and the rocking numbers such as penultimate song ‘Headblower’ possess an equally real passion and, where required, anger about them.
In the previous edition of these occasional columns we raved about the Jupiter Lion album. This edition’s second featured album is by one half of that duo; Jose Guerreros, a man with clearly more musical ideas in his head than many an artist. Cuello gives him the opportunity to use a group dynamic to explore yet another of his many musical loves – a thrashy, trebly guitar sound and lyrics delivered with a Pixies-esque level of passion. 
This is music made to protest along to. Each chorus sounds like either a call to arms or an appeal to smash your way in to a bureaucratic stronghold. Fizzing with positively channelled aggression these are 11 songs that do more than just allow you (or Jose for that matter) to blow off steam – they inspire action. Benefitting from being played & recorded live (by Guerreros’ bandmate in Betunizer, Pablo Piero) this is latter day punk rock with refinement, which manages to get the essence of its message across the language barrier through sheer force of personality.
Third up this time around we have Eric Fuentes (erstwhile singer with The Unfinished Sympathy) with his fourth album in partnership with pianist Bernat Sanchez - Copper And Gold. This is a percussion-free collection of ten songs (nine originals and a version of 'It Was A Very Good Year', popularised by Frank Sinatra) but that description shouldn't lead you to think this to be a sparse work. On the contrary, the pair infuse a great deal of emotion and atmosphere into the album. Like an all-male Dresden Dolls, first track 'Brotherhood' starts off in a Weimaresque manner but through Fuentes' vocals verging on a punk/hardcore styling and the urgency that builds once the guitar part comes in the breadth of the sounds expands to something wholly modern.
This is consistently the case for the remainder of the album, walking a line between old school crooners from the 1930s onwards and the aforementioned hardcore vocal element. There's something very persuasive about this, more so than the likes of Frank Turner or other singers of similar backgrounds who've struck out in a rather different direction from the one they've previously taken with a full band in tow. The cover version is made the duo's own, bringing Joe Jackson to mind in the process. Fair enough it's a classic but Fuentes has a weary quality to his voice that somehow makes it of the moment rather than an homage. Songs such as 'Make A Wish' could do with being slightly longer as the brevity ends up pulling the emotional punch but all in this is a seriously delivered collection with undoubted international appeal.
Speaking of international we finish up this time with the third album from Tokyo Sex Destruction (who's Joan Thelorious features in the live line-up when Eric Fuentes tours). It's taken the trio ten years to get to the stage of Sagittarius but they've been learning all the while. Theirs is a rock sound steeped in the best of the '60s and '70s - funk, psych, soul, garage you name it, it's all there in the mix.
By the time third song 'In The Right Place' has you stomping and clapping along you'll be fully in agreement that you are indeed exactly where you should be. The themes dealt with are universal - loves won and lost, parties to be started or kept going but the underlying driving bass tones and latin elements coupled with titles such as 'Dead Cops' and 'Sweet Riot' provide a Budos Band-like seriousness of purpose at times amidst the sunnier likes of 'When Those Times Are Coming Back (It Could Be Painful For Your Heart)'.
Given the strength of the album as a whole the band deserve to attract a host of new fans on the back of it and you should add it in to that list of albums for the summer we reviewers keep referring to (whether you live somewhere that'll actually have a summer or not - putting this on will give some of the illusion of one when that trumpet squeals away on the title track)..